This paper is based on presentation given at the June 2011 Conference of the Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research at the University of Manchester. It reviews key features of the 2007-08 financial crisis, the subsequent 'great recession' and the European public debt problems; in the...

This paper analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on stock market returns and their volatility in the case of the G20 countries. In contrast to the existing empirical literature, which typically focuses only on either Covid-19 deaths or lockdown policies, our analysis is based on a...

This paper analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on stock market returns and their volatility in the case of the G20 countries. In contrast to the existing empirical literature, which typically focuses only on either Covid-19 deaths or lockdown policies, our analysis is based on a...

We provide empirical evidence on the effects of tax liability changes in the United States. We make a distinction between "surprise" and "anticipated" tax shocks. Surprise tax cuts give rise to a large boom in the economy. Anticipated tax liability tax cuts are instead associated with a...

We investigate intergenerational risk sharing in two-pillar pension systems with a pay-as-you-go pillar and a funded pillar. We consider shocks in productivity, depreciation of capital and inflation. The funded pension pillar can be either defined contribution or defined benefit, with benefits...

We examine global economic dynamics under learning in a New Keynesian model in which the interest-rate rule is subject to the zero lower bound. Under normal monetary and fiscal policy, the intended steady state is locally but not globally stable. Large pessimistic shocks to expectations can lead...

A shift in taxes or in government spending (a ”fiscal shock”) at some point in time puts a constraint on the path of taxes and spending in the future, since the government intertemporal budget constraint will eventually have to be met. This simple fact is surprisingly overlooked in analyses...

This Paper computes welfare-maximizing monetary and tax policy feedback rules, in a calibrated dynamic general equilibrium model with sticky prices. The government makes exogenous final good purchases, levies a proportional income tax, and issues nominal one-period bonds. A quadratic...

This paper considers optimal educational investment and labour supply with increasing returns to scale in the earnings function In so doing we develop the work of Rosen (1983), who first highlighted the increasing returns argument that arises because private returns to human capital investment...

We derive a set of stylized facts on the effects of non-systematic fiscal policy in the four largest countries of the Euro area, and discuss their implications for the fiscal policy coordination debate, for the effectiveness of fiscal shocks in stabilizing the economies, and for the interaction...